Shubman Gill Will Join The Punjab Ranji Team For The Next Match
After Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill makes himself available to play for Punjab for their Ranji Trophy sixth round match against Karnataka at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru from January 23. The squad has not been announced yet.
Gill’s chance to re-enter the Punjab fold might offer him a platform to work alongside Wasim Jaffer, tallest run-scorer in Ranji history and now Punjab’s coach. This is due to heightened scrutiny over his poor outside-Asia returns, with an average of 17.64 in 18 innings since June 2021, especially with India due to tour England for five Tests in the summer.
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His return bolsters a side that will be without senior players Abhishek Sharma and Arshdeep Singh, with both picked in India’s T20I squad for a five-match series against England starting January 22 in Kolkata.
Gill last played in the Ranji Trophy for Punjab in 2022 in a quarter-final against Madhya Pradesh in Alur. His comeback comes with the Indian team management demanding national players follow strict protocols due to India’s 3-1 Test Series loss in Australia.
Head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar had voiced the need of the hour for the top players to make themselves available for their respective state teams when free of international commitments.
Gill managed a top score of 31 in five innings after coming back from an injury sustained in the finger, which had kept him out of the first match of the series in Perth. He averaged 18.60 for the series. Gill was also left out of India’s XI for the Boxing Day Test as the team management decided on KL Rahul at No. 3, having slotted back Rohit Sharma for opening as he had, in the second Test, starred in the middle order for the beginning of the series.
At the time, though, the team management said Gill had not been dropped: “unfortunate” not to have him due to team combination, considering that India had gone in with two spin-bowling all-rounders-Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar.
Punjab’s hope for the Ranji Trophy playoffs was hanging by a thread; sitting fifth in Group A with a solitary win in five games.
